News Briefs (9/28/10)

Thursday, Sept. 30 will mark the 141st birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Miami University will celebrate the historical figure as well as the International Day of Non-Violence that is recognized in accordance with Gandhi’s birthday.

V.V. Raman, professor emeritus of physics and humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will deliver a lecture entitled Mahatma Gandhi’s Relevance for the 21st Century to honor Gandhi.

Faculty, staff, students and the Oxford community are invited to attend this free event that will take place at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in 111 Harrison Hall.

The Office of International Education, Office of Diversity Affairs and the Office of American and World Cultures will sponsor the event.

University implements wellness initiative

Miami University kicked off phase one of its wellness initiative with free health screenings at Miami’s Health Center and Oxford’s McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital Sept. 27 and will continue until May 15, 2011.

Designed to help Miami employees take an active role in maintaining healthy lifestyles, Healthy Miami is part of a three-phase wellness initiative. As an incentive to combat rising health care premiums, participants and their spouses who complete phase one can each earn a $15 monthly credit on their health care premiums, which will keep the premiums at the 2010 level into 2011.

Spouses and same-sex domestic partners covered by Miami’s health insurance are also eligible and encouraged to participate in the program. All eligible participants are required to complete a health screening, personal wellness profile and doctor visit before May 15, 2011 to complete phase one of the program.

You must sign up in order to receive the text message alert. All other messages will be delivered automatically. If you haven’t signed up for text alerts, you can do so at muohio.edu/police. All students, staff and faculty should receive an e-mail, and those subscribed to emergency text messages services should receive a text message.

The text and e-mail messages will say “Test” in the subject line. The message will ask recipients to note the time they saw the message.

A random survey sent to some staff, students and faculty will ask them to give the time they saw the message. The survey should be completed in two days.

If there is a weather or emergency message that needs to go out that day, the test will be run one week later at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 6.